In a season where the Nats have hovered consistently around the .500 mark, there have been many ups and downs. But for some reason, lately it seems the peaks and valleys have been more extreme. They win three straight, then they lose two at Detroit and panic ensues. Now the Nats are back to winning with two consecutive victories out in Milwaukee and a chance for a sweep on Sunday.

Today the Nats will trot out RHP Taylor Jordan (1-3, 3.31 ERA) who is coming off his first major league win, a dominant start against the Mets in which he allowed just one run over six innings of work. Jordan is making just his seventh major league start, but his second against the Brewers. The rookie threw 5 2/3 innings with two runs allowed in a Nats' win on July 4.

Pitching for the Brew Crew is veteran right-hander Kyle Lohse. Signed late in the offseason as a free agent, Lohse has pulled together a pretty nice year for Milwaukee. Through 134 1/3 innings in 2013 he boasts a 3.22 ERA and a 7-7 record. In an overall struggling staff this year, Lohse has been Milwaukee's best starter. He pitched eight innings with just one earned run against the Nats on July 3.

NatsFanSinceStart? What position did you say that your son played on the MD Patriots? I knew all the dads on that team, and you said you were going to be sitting 4 rows behind the Pirate's dugout a couple of weeks ago. I looked and I sure didn't see anybody whose son played for the Patriots.

Some people feel since the team does some thing negative, they must be negative.Some people feel if the team plays negative that they need to insult people.Others belive like I that that as long as we are not mathmatically eliminated we can still make the playoffs.But I dont understand why those feel negative feel they need to say anything. If I was going to feel that way, I believer I wouldnt even bother to write anything.

This is what Girardi said about Rodriguez playing for NY in Chicago tomorrow.”I think all of us are curious what’s going to happen, and is Alex going to be a player for us tomorrow, and what’s going to happen with the other guys that are involved in this. Because in my mind I have him penciled in here tomorrow. … I don’t suspect it’ll be awkward. Most of the guys know him as a teammate and have laughed a lot with Alex and been around Alex a lot. I think it’ll be business as usual.”Mr. Lerner, I don't care how much it costs, get that guy for our manager–assuming the Yanks don't lock him up for ten years!

Meanwhile, Buck Showalter sounds just like Davey, tomorrow is another day."We were one swing and one run away from being in a different situation. They got some production out of the bottom of their order, and that hurts." [Showalter said.]The Orioles went 4-5 on the homestand."It's a turn the page," Showalter said. "It is what is. You try to learn from things, but if you dwell on it, there's another one around the corner. So, we don't sit there and lament what could have been. You have to focus on what has to be in the future."

David, Jordan did, or Davey did? Four more–seems like a lot. Wonder if that changed with Ohlendorf going down. Rizzo needs to be looking very carefully at the waiver wire–unless we go 3 of 9 on the homestand, then it probably doesn't matter.

NL at 531pm, nice job!re. the foul ball, I didn't see many replays and did not see ALR going nuts…would have thought he would have had the best view, not saying he would have changed the 1B umpire's mind but usually you see the fielder closest to the play putting up the biggest fuss…did anyone see whether it was the correct call? This is why I would give each manager 2 or 3 challenges per game but only fair/foul, safe/out calls not ball/strike calls, just seems like they should get those right and with the technology, they should, have an i-pad in the dug-out so they can review asap and not disappear for 3-5 minutes in the umpire room…just a thought.

pb, FP said he looked at the replay several times and he thought it was inconclusive. He thought if there was MLB replay along the lines of NFL replay it would not have been overturned. Hard to say what the dugout/clubhouse saw, maybe there was a different angle. Just–why bother going out if you don't have a strong feeling about it?

Davey said in the postgame that wanted the umpire who made the call to ask for help. But he wouldn't ask for help. I don't understand why an umpire wouldn't at least ask and see if someone has a better view of it.

This game was filled with bad breaks. It's not like they hit the ball hard. You had the chopper over Zim's head, the looper that scored 2 runs because the infield was in, a sac fly, the double over the bag. Everything found holes.

Adam Kilgore ‏@AdamKilgoreWP 2sJayson Werth had an x-ray on his right hand, which got hit by a Kyle Lohse fastball. It was negative, but there was a nasty bruise.Of course, the umpire said it didn't hit him.

If Jordan has 4 more starts then I don't think there is an urgency to replace Ross O. As much as I hope I think 3 weeks from now we will still hover near 500 and out of the playoffs- although I sincerely hope I am wrong. Once we are out no reason not to use guys like Maya or any of he AAA guys to get some experience.

>>There's also this. Even a bad team has good players. And not just Segura.>>Andrew Gruman ‏@AndrewGruman 8m#Brewers reliever Brandon Kintzler has a 0.76 ERA in his last 18 outings.That doesn't change the fact that they are one of the worst, if not the worst teams in baseball.If you posit yourself as a playoff contender, at this time of the season, you can't lose to the Milwaukee Brewers

PChuck, with that I agree. Also think we should have gotten 1 of 2 from Detroit. And a lot of other things that should have happened, but didn't. I don't want to say I'm discouraged, but optimism is getting difficult to sustain.

Venting is fine, but why followthat with a negative prediction.That is not being positive at all. Would never bother to watch if I thought they couldn't win.I start each game believing they will win one game.

MNF, didn't have a chance to congratulate you on the new son-in-law. (LOL). We have our best three lined up against the Barves. The weather prediction for tomorrow is EXCELLENT. Stras needs to pitch the no-hitter we've all been waiting for. Gio needs to completely forget his last outing. JZ needs to be solid. I feel bad for Jayson. He got plunked in the ribs, plunked in the hand and he's playing through groin pain and he's STILL HITTING. Help him out, guys. Help him out, this man wants to win.

Natslady – I was thinking Lilly too. If they can get him back into shape, perhaps we can go in to next year with him and Haren at 4 and 5. I'd be happy with that if we can get some consistency, and they may come cheap. Of course if Angelos lets go of the TV money we could get after some better players in general for bench and perhaps, as much as I like Denard Span, another strong option in OF. I'd rather have Span off the bench than Tracy.

On the controversial foul ball, it looked to me like the ball hopped right over the corner of first base, so if I had to make the call looking at the replay, I would call it a fair ball. But the viewing angle of the camera might have been off, so who knows.

Well I'm here to say what I said from the very beginning.Span was a very poor choice for lead-off and barely decent compared to Ankiel, Harper, and Corey Brown in CF. Prefer Brown because of the potential XBH/ISO in his bat. Span's OBP is nothing special. Now, Werth's? In the last 3 months of 2012 certainly WAS? He's not a consistent power/ run producing bat anymore. It starts there and cascades over the entire lineup leading to LaRoche over Morse. Espinosa's implosion had a greater effect than many here can comprehend. 37 doubles and 17 homers mostly form the #7 slot is nothing to sneeze at and looks better than what LaRoche will produce in 2013.BUt, of course this is Natsinsider. Everyone wants to here rosy, sunny, beautiful sunsets ne'er a rain cloud in sight posts and predictions … sigh …Well I predicted Ohlendorf would be a great deal more than anyone expected and so I will put myself again out on the limb.: If Haren can manage to even his W/L record to a .500 mark? Then the Nats make the playoffs. Can Haren accomplish this? Given his last three or so starts the answer looks like it is an affirmative. That coming from someone who stil thinks Rizzo would have better served the franchise by trading him to a team in desperate need willing to give up top prospects … but the deadline is now passed.The Nats were built to be world-series class in pitching (especially starting pitching) and stellar ultra range infield defense. The former is coming around. The latter with Zimmerman at third and Rendon at second is questionable but that defense may be enough to get a wild card entry. They can't rely on the sputtering offense. If its going to happen its going to have to be Tampa Bay Rays style with pitching and in the Nat's case top infield defense.

Sec 3 I hate when the blog attracts trolls and they say such stupid things. I respect anyone's opinion about players, management and chances to go to the playoffs as long as the opinion is expressed with a minimum of intelligence and doesn't feel the need to attack someone else to make the point. But this blog costs the same for the intelligent posts as the ignorant ones.

Peric to be fair you also said Rendon would never be at second base too.I see Werth as a leader of the team on the field, something ths team needs. Is he overpaid? You betcha. They need him n the lineup.